(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-28 21:12

TEHRAN -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Iraq in less than two months, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday.

"The visit to Iraq of President Ahmadinejad has become finalized" and he would pay the visit before the end of the current Iranian year on March 19, the official IRNA news agency quoted Mottaki as saying.

Mottaki said that Iraqi officials had delivered the invitation during his visit to Baghdad in late October and he had handed over the invitation to President Ahmadinejad.

His announcement came after an Iraqi official said last week that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has extended an invitation of visit to his Iranian counterpart Ahmadinejad.

If the visit could be achieved, it will be another landmark in the relationship between the two countries that fought a cruel eight-year war in 1980s.

Their tense relations became relaxed following the fall of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003. Both Talabani and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have already visited Iran.

The United States, which bills Iran as one of the "Axis of Evil ", has accused Tehran of aiding Shiite insurgents in Iraq. Iran denies the charge.

Nevertheless, the United States and Iran held three rounds of talks over the Iraqi security last year, which were hosted by Iraq. A fourth meeting, scheduled for last December, has been suspended.